A stop sign seen in front of Russian Foreign Ministry building in Moscow

MOSCOW, August 27./ITAR-TASS/. The Russian Foreign Ministry denied earlier media reports that Russia and the United States were allegedly holding the so-called “secret talks” on the solution of the Ukrainian ongoing crisis and recently held a meeting on the issue on the island of Boisto, located off the southern Finnish coast.

“In connection with reports on some kind of ‘secret talks’ between Russia and the United States on the Ukrainian issue held on the Finnish island of Boisto, we would like to state that an expert meeting did take place there,” the ministry said.

“However, it [the meeting] was not of the nature of consultations between official representatives of the two states, but one of multiple contacts on the level of Russian and American non-governmental organizations and academic societies,” the ministry added.

The ministry said that the participants of the meeting drafted a documented following their discussions and it stated a purely public nature of the talks containing ideas and points of view “concerning the ways to overcome the crisis in Ukraine.”

“On our behalf, we welcome intentions of the public and academic societies to contribute into the resolution of the situation in the Southeast of Ukraine and to put an end as soon as possible to bloodshed encouraged by Kiev authorities’ forceful measures,” the ministry said.

“Such opinion exchanges between the Russian and American non-governmental experts are regularly held on other issues as well,” the Russian ministry added.